Report: OU & Texas reach out to join SEC

[Gonzo]

Whoever earlier in this thread said discovery in this is going to be epic may have understated it. If someone at ESPN was dumb enough to put any of this down in written correspondence with the AAC, that would be fun to watch.

 

[jdoggivjc]

You know what I’d find amusing? If the SEC gets dragged into all these lawsuits and they get crippled in the process, it’s like Texas hasn’t even officially joined the SEC yet and they’ve already had their hand in destroying yet another conference.

 

[MartyFine]

Whoever earlier in this thread said discovery in this is going to be epic may have understated it. If someone at ESPN was dumb enough to put any of this down in written correspondence with the AAC, that would be fun to watch.

These ESPN criminals will assert their 5th amendment rights in every deposition.

 

[jdoggivjc]

Whoever earlier in this thread said discovery in this is going to be epic may have understated it. If someone at ESPN was dumb enough to put any of this down in written correspondence with the AAC, that would be fun to watch.

I’d have to think it’d be the end of the AAC. There’s no way they could survive that kind of litigation.

 

[State2015]

*B1G raids the Pac before its TV deal gets re-done in a few years
*Big 12 and Pac-12 leftovers merge
*B1G and SEC raid the ACC when its GOR gets closer to ending (still 15 years left now)
*ACC leftovers elevate some AAC programs (and also pull WVU over at that time)
*B1G/SEC exist in their own tier; B12/Pac-12 and ACC are in the second tier; G5 is a third tier of FBS
*B1G and SEC exit the NCAA and maybe leave behind the Mississippi States and Purdues for something like a 36-school, 2-conference super league

The next 25 years or so of major college athletics.

This is exactly how I see this playing out tbh

 

[CycloneErik]

You know what I’d find amusing? If the SEC gets dragged into all these lawsuits and they get crippled in the process, it’s like Texas hasn’t even officially joined the SEC yet and they’ve already had their hand in destroying yet another conference.

If any school could do it.......

 

[AuH2O]

Summary (which has already been posted ad nauseam): B12 > AAC, B12 GOR buys time, P5's not ready for B12 remains ... yet, but will absorb depending on outcome of litigation, GOR, and ongoing content assessment for next 2 years (benefitting ISU).

Yes, it's truly amazing that anybody within or outside of ESPN thought this would work.

Not so sure it's really a disagreement, with the article, but in regards to any current leftover members not having enough value to allow the conferences to profit or even break even on expansion: On the face, this is probably true. However:
- There could be pressure from media companies to expand. It's not as though a media contract is going to be negotiated as, "we'll give you $X per team regardless of if you expand or not, and regardless of who you expand to include." It's going to be that the contract is worth $Y total dollars based on each potential expansion partner (or status quo).
- Any of the Big 12 leftovers are going to forgo a ton of money to get in. There would likely be a period of a few years where the payout to that school would be very low, thus allowing the rest of the conference to break even/profit. In the meantime this allows either those new additions to build enough value to pull their weight, or have there be a completely new restructured system that makes all of these contracts and conferences largely irrelevant.
- It assumes that teams in the conferences currently are totally safe. There are teams in the BIG, PAC and ACC that draw very poor viewership, well below that of Okie St. and ISU. In these conferences it's not as though the value of the existing schools are all clustered around the per team payout. There are plenty that are major drags on the conference (Looking at you Wake, BC, Vandy, Rutgers, Oregon State, etc.). Whose to say conferences wouldn't want to position themselves for a future situation where realignment, dissolution or other types of scenarios make jettisoning dead weight possible, especially when the time it takes for that to happen would be taken up by reduced payout to an Okie St. or ISU?

So if I'm the Big 10 and I think this is all going to blow up in 6 years in a way that either conferences won't exist, or we will be able to dump and add teams with a fair amount of freedom, why not add say, two of Okie St., KU, ISU on this schedule:

Year 1: 0% media dist.
Years 2-3: 25% media dist.
Years 4-5: 50% media dist.
Years 6+: 50-100% media dist. based on some sort of metric that can be used to determine value returned to the conference.

For example, lets say total media contracts for the current membership as-is in the big 10 will total $1 billion annual avg over 5 years. That's just about 71.4 million per team.

Under the scenario above, if the average contract goes to $1.038 billion, the current member schools break even. So that means if between the two schools added, they need to add a TOTAL of $38 million/year for that to happen.

No idea if two of the Big 12 schools would deliver that, but I think this suggests that it is actually feasible, and why power conferences may consider schools like ISU, Okie St. and KU and not just shoot down the idea right off the bat.

 

[Cloneon]

The addition of any member or the whole has to be of greater value than the individual shares in the existing conference. If, for example, Ku potentially adds $20 million in revenue to a conference that currently receives $50 million each, then the addition of Ku would be a net negative to the existing members.

Those are the assessment numbers (ie 'after' the games are played). I'm talking about the numbers used to leverage larger audiences. Which are the only numbers we have today that mean anything for negotiation (media contract or membership). The networks and conferences want 'content' to fill their obligation to fill the televising bandwidth. And while most 'think' fewer brand names are the solution, the ability to advertise/promote multiple marquee matchups throughout the season with a wider array of content would have a better return.

 

[AuH2O]

But ESPN doesn't have exclusive rights to the Big 12. That's the point here. ESPN was playing dirty pool to force the remaining 8 into a conference they had complete control of so that 1) The Big 12 dissolves allowing Texas and OU to escape quickly without paying for the GOR and the penalties(probably with a lot of money from ESPN) 2)ESPN would have control over all the inventory of the remaining 8. Throwing just big enough numbers to the remaining 8 to get them to join the AAC saves ESPN huge money not the least of which is the remaining $500,000,000 on the current TV deal. Which apparently as little as ONE remaining conference member can still claim and sue for. If the rest want to leave and we get $500,000,000 I'd go for that too. We'd have plenty of cash to be Independent for awhile and see how things shake out. The moral of this story is it's NOT time to panic. It's time to go to war.

I wonder exactly WHY they tried to do it. I just don't understand how they thought it would actually work. Just like I understand WHY some loser guy might try to ask a supermodel out on a date.

But yes, I agree, not time to panic. If anything, such a move shows that ESPN was acting out of absolute panic, incredible stupidity or both.

 

[surly]

Those are the assessment numbers (ie 'after' the games are played). I'm talking about the numbers used to leverage larger audiences. Which are the only numbers we have today that mean anything for negotiation (media contract or membership). The networks and conferences want 'content' to fill their obligation to fill the televising bandwidth. And while most 'think' fewer brand names are the solution, the ability to advertise/promote multiple marquee matchups throughout the season with a wider array of content would have a better return.

What the networks want - more content - is not necessarily what the conference membership requires, maximum revenue. And therein lies the issue with adding schools whose incremental revenue addition would be less than the existing per member payout.

 

[jcyclonee]

Prison time. Lol

It's a possibility. Sure, they wouldn't be going to Leavenworth but one of the Club Fed prisons is a remote possibility.

 

[Cloneon]

What the networks want - more content - is not necessarily what the conference membership requires, maximum revenue. And therein lies the issue with adding schools whose incremental revenue addition would be less than the existing per member payout.

And the two shall meet somewhere in the middle. Which, imo, will be much larger than what the minions calculate.

 

[Die4Cy]

OR - it could be the Pac12 is in on the eff ESPN bus with everyone else, and is pushing the message that there are no communications or desire for teams. That would make the ESPN-SEC move much more of an independent interference move, as opposed to making it look like this stuff happens all the time.

No way we can really know any of what is actually going on. Unless you have Kliavkoff and Bowlsby's phones bugged lol.

Scooping up teams from the Big 12 right now would be racing to the aid of ESPN and their SEC subdivision. Fox has no reason to want to do this. Fox and CBS actually have an incentive to throw more fuel on the fire with a lawsuit toward ESPN of their own.

 

[surly]

And the two shall meet somewhere in the middle. Which, imo, will be much larger than what the minions calculate.

I don't necessarily agree but since I don't understand your last sentence, it's hard to counter.

 

[Die4Cy]

The addition of any member or the whole has to be of greater value than the individual shares in the existing conference. If, for example, Ku potentially adds $20 million in revenue to a conference that currently receives $50 million each, then the addition of Ku would be a net negative to the existing members.

While generally true, prospective revenue is an aetherial concept with many subjective components, only one of which is what TV tells you the school's content is worth.

 

[CYTUTT]

You know what that screams of? The PAC 12 seeing what’s going on between the SEC, ESPN, Big 12, the cease and desist, and the potential impending lawsuits, and the Pac 12 saying “um, yeah - we’re going to wait until all of this dies down and the Big 12 truly is dead before we do our poaching”.

As someone said, if the PAC 12 doesn’t expand east, they’re dead in the future of college sports.

And we know they were willing to expand the last time the plague of realignment spread. That makes me think this is the situation.

 

[spierceisu]

But ESPN doesn't have exclusive rights to the Big 12. That's the point here. ESPN was playing dirty pool to force the remaining 8 into a conference they had complete control of so that 1) The Big 12 dissolves allowing Texas and OU to escape quickly without paying for the GOR and the penalties(probably with a lot of money from ESPN) 2)ESPN would have control over all the inventory of the remaining 8. Throwing just big enough numbers to the remaining 8 to get them to join the AAC saves ESPN huge money not the least of which is the remaining $500,000,000 on the current TV deal. Which apparently as little as ONE remaining conference member can still claim and sue for. If the rest want to leave and we get $500,000,000 I'd go for that too. We'd have plenty of cash to be Independent for awhile and see how things shake out. The moral of this story is it's NOT time to panic. It's time to go to war.

Since Fox has some rights to the Big 12, I would be suing ESPN as well as besides ESPN gaining essentially exclusive rights to all the Big 12 schools (the SEC and American), Fox loses rights due to no Big 12 content if it dissolves. That would be a huge amount of damages owed to Fox as well.

 

[Cyclonepride]

Yes, it's truly amazing that anybody within or outside of ESPN thought this would work.

Not so sure it's really a disagreement, with the article, but in regards to any current leftover members not having enough value to allow the conferences to profit or even break even on expansion: On the face, this is probably true. However:
- There could be pressure from media companies to expand. It's not as though a media contract is going to be negotiated as, "we'll give you $X per team regardless of if you expand or not, and regardless of who you expand to include." It's going to be that the contract is worth $Y total dollars based on each potential expansion partner (or status quo).
- Any of the Big 12 leftovers are going to forgo a ton of money to get in. There would likely be a period of a few years where the payout to that school would be very low, thus allowing the rest of the conference to break even/profit. In the meantime this allows either those new additions to build enough value to pull their weight, or have there be a completely new restructured system that makes all of these contracts and conferences largely irrelevant.
- It assumes that teams in the conferences currently are totally safe. There are teams in the BIG, PAC and ACC that draw very poor viewership, well below that of Okie St. and ISU. In these conferences it's not as though the value of the existing schools are all clustered around the per team payout. There are plenty that are major drags on the conference (Looking at you Wake, BC, Vandy, Rutgers, Oregon State, etc.). Whose to say conferences wouldn't want to position themselves for a future situation where realignment, dissolution or other types of scenarios make jettisoning dead weight possible, especially when the time it takes for that to happen would be taken up by reduced payout to an Okie St. or ISU?

So if I'm the Big 10 and I think this is all going to blow up in 6 years in a way that either conferences won't exist, or we will be able to dump and add teams with a fair amount of freedom, why not add say, two of Okie St., KU, ISU on this schedule:

Year 1: 0% media dist.
Years 2-3: 25% media dist.
Years 4-5: 50% media dist.
Years 6+: 50-100% media dist. based on some sort of metric that can be used to determine value returned to the conference.

For example, lets say total media contracts for the current membership as-is in the big 10 will total $1 billion annual avg over 5 years. That's just about 71.4 million per team.

Under the scenario above, if the average contract goes to $1.038 billion, the current member schools break even. So that means if between the two schools added, they need to add a TOTAL of $38 million/year for that to happen.

No idea if two of the Big 12 schools would deliver that, but I think this suggests that it is actually feasible, and why power conferences may consider schools like ISU, Okie St. and KU and not just shoot down the idea right off the bat.

I think it highlights what we've discussed before- the utter disdain that the East Coast talking heads (and their bosses) have for everyone but the blue blood schools. The other 8 schools were just bush league programs to them, who would take whatever scraps they were offered after they were done destroying the Big 12.

 

[KnappShack]

I think it highlights what we've discussed before- the utter disdain that the East Coast talking heads (and their bosses) have for everyone but the blue blood schools. The other 8 schools were just bush league programs to them, who would take whatever scraps they were offered after they were done destroying the Big 12.

Maybe. Just maybe college football isn't all about who holds the trophy (Alabama or Clemson) over their head.

Maybe college football is about relationships. Maybe it's about local rivals and next door neighbors giving each other good natured grief.

Maybe college ball was (was) special.

 

[CyLyte2]

I wonder exactly WHY they tried to do it. I just don't understand how they thought it would actually work. Just like I understand WHY some loser guy might try to ask a supermodel out on a date.

But yes, I agree, not time to panic. If anything, such a move shows that ESPN was acting out of absolute panic, incredible stupidity or both.

Why? To save the $500,000,000 owed to the Big 12. The AAC wasn't doing anything. ESPN was trying to use the AAC as a vehicle to retaining all the available inventory for themselves while saving large sums of money.